Multimodal entity identification

ABSTRACT

A machine learning based system can identify an entity as the likely subject of a multimodal message (e.g., a social media post having a short text phrase overlaid on an image) by creating embeddings for an image of the multimodal message and one or more string embeddings from text of the multimodal message. The embeddings can be weighted to maximize information gain, then recombined and compared against a result embedding database to identify an entity as the subject of the multimodal message.

PRIORITY

This application claims the benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/556,215, filed on Sep. 8, 2017, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to machine learning and, more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to identifying named entities using machine learning.

BACKGROUND

Conventionally, Named Entity Disambiguation (NED) is a computer scheme that attempts to identify an entity associated with a given set of data (e.g., text data). For example, if a user posts about Michael Jordan, a NED scheme may analyze the text to try to determine whether the user is referencing Michael Jordan, the famous basketball player, or some other person named Michael Jordan. NED schemes generally require highly structured data and perform poorly if the input data is not large enough. For example, it is very difficult for conventional NED schemes to ascertain a referenced entity from only a few words, such as “I am hungry for DQ,” or “I do it for my bee queen”.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

To easily identify the discussion of any particular element or act, the most significant digit or digits in a reference number refer to the figure (“FIG.”) number in which that element or act is first introduced.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example messaging system for exchanging data (e.g., messages and associated content) over a network.

FIG. 2 is block diagram illustrating further details regarding a messaging system having an integrated virtual object machine learning system, according to example embodiments.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating data that may be stored in a database of a messaging server system, according to certain example embodiments.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a structure of a message, according to some embodiments, generated by a messaging client application for communication.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example access-limiting process, in terms of which access to content (e.g., an ephemeral message, and associated multimedia payload of data) or a content collection (e.g., an ephemeral message story) may be time-limited (e.g., made ephemeral).

FIG. 6 shows example functional components of an entity system, according to some example embodiments

FIG. 7 shows a flow diagram of an example method for identifying an entity from a data set, such as a multimodal message, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 8 shows a flow diagram of an example method for generating results vector data and selecting an entity as the subject of a message (e.g., multimodal message), according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 9 shows a functional architecture for implementing entity identification from sparse data, such as data from a multimodal message, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 10 shows the internal functional architecture of a string net, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 11 shows an example multimodal message, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 12 shows an example modified multimodal message created in response to identification of the likely entity being referenced in the original multimodal message, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating a representative software architecture, which may be used in conjunction with various hardware architectures herein described.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram illustrating components of a machine, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The description that follows includes systems, methods, techniques, instruction sequences, and computing machine program products that embody illustrative embodiments of the disclosure. In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide an understanding of various embodiments of the inventive subject matter. It will be evident, however, to those skilled in the art, that embodiments of the inventive subject matter may be practiced without these specific details. In general, well-known instruction instances, protocols, structures, and techniques are not necessarily shown in detail.

As discussed above, identifying an entity from a sparse dataset, e.g., “I do it for roooooger”, is difficult because of misspelling, ambiguity as to which Roger (e.g., Roger Federer, Roger Clemens, Roger Ebert), and other issues. To this end, an entity system can perform NED using multimodal data (e.g., an image and a few words that describe the image). The multimodal message may be a social media post of an image with a short caption that describes a person depicted in the image. Embeddings (e.g., vector representations output by machine learning schemes such as neural networks) can be generated for each type of data in the multimodal message. For example, an image embedding can be generated from the image of the multimodal message, a word embedding can be generated from the words of the multimodal message, and character embeddings can be generated from letters or symbols of the multimodal message. An attention net then generates weights for each of the embedding types. The attention net emphasizes or deemphasizes embeddings to maximize information gain based on how useful the embeddings are in determining an entity. For example, if the multimodal message is a social media post depicting Justin Bieber (a pop music singer) on stage at a concert with the caption “Juuuuustin!!!”, the words of the message are not that useful because the singer's named is misspelled, does not include his last name, and is only one word. However, the image of a person on stage in front of an audience with neon lights in the background can be highly indicative that the Justin being referenced is Justin Bieber, the pop star, and not Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada. As such, the attention net captures the usefulness of the image embedding by emphasizing it and deemphasizing the word embedding “Juuuustin!!!!”. Similarly, symbols (e.g., emojis, smiley faces, and the like) can also be used to generate character embeddings, which can then likewise be emphasized or de-emphasized using the trained attention net.

The emphasized or de-emphasized embeddings can then be combined in a fully connected neural network and compared against possible entity vectors that correspond to potential entity matches. The entity that has the closest matching entity vector is output as the subject of the multimodal message. Each potential entity has a word embedding generated from a corpus of text describing the entity (e.g., a Wikipedia® article). Further, each potential entity has the letters of its name compared to letters or characters from the multimodal message. Comparing entity vectors to a combined entity embedding allows the entity system to identify an entity even though the entity was not part of the original training data used to train the networks.

Once an entity is identified as the subject of a message, additional content (e.g., cartoon imagery) can be overlaid on the multimodal message, which can then be published as an ephemeral message on a social media network, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example messaging system 100 for exchanging data (e.g., messages and associated content) over a network. The messaging system 100 includes multiple client devices 102, each of which hosts a number of applications including a messaging client application 104. Each messaging client application 104 is communicatively coupled to other instances of the messaging client application 104 and a messaging server system 108 via a network 106 (e.g., the Internet).

Accordingly, each messaging client application 104 is able to communicate and exchange data with another messaging client application 104 and with the messaging server system 108 via the network 106. The data exchanged between messaging client applications 104, and between a messaging client application 104 and the messaging server system 108, includes functions (e.g., commands to invoke functions) as well as payload data (e.g., text, audio, video, or other multimedia data).

The messaging server system 108 provides server-side functionality via the network 106 to a particular messaging client application 104. While certain functions of the messaging system 100 are described herein as being performed by either a messaging client application 104 or by the messaging server system 108, it will be appreciated that the location of certain functionality within either the messaging client application 104 or the messaging server system 108 is a design choice. For example, it may be technically preferable to initially deploy certain technology and functionality within the messaging server system 108, and to later migrate this technology and functionality to the messaging client application 104 where a client device 102 has a sufficient processing capacity.

The messaging server system 108 supports various services and operations that are provided to the messaging client application 104. Such operations include transmitting data to, receiving data from, and processing data generated by the messaging client application 104. This data may include message content, client device information, geolocation information, media annotation and overlays, message content persistence conditions, social network information, and live event information, as examples. Data exchanges within the messaging system 100 are invoked and controlled through functions available via user interfaces (UIs) of the messaging client application 104.

Turning now specifically to the messaging server system 108, an application programming interface (API) server 110 is coupled to, and provides a programmatic interface to, an application server 112. The application server 112 is communicatively coupled to a database server 118, which facilitates access to a database 120 in which is stored data associated with messages processed by the application server 112.

The API server 110 receives and transmits message data (e.g., commands and message payloads) between the client devices 102 and the application server 112. Specifically, the API server 110 provides a set of interfaces (e.g., routines and protocols) that can be called or queried by the messaging client application 104 in order to invoke functionality of the application server 112. The API server 110 exposes various functions supported by the application server 112, including account registration; login functionality; the sending of messages, via the application server 112, from a particular messaging client application 104 to another messaging client application 104; the sending of media files (e.g., images or video) from a messaging client application 104 to a messaging server application 114 for possible access by another messaging client application 104; the setting of a collection of media data (e.g., a story); the retrieval of such collections; the retrieval of a list of friends of a user of a client device 102; the retrieval of messages and content; the adding and deletion of friends to and from a social graph; the location of friends within the social graph; and opening application events (e.g., relating to the messaging client application 104).

The application server 112 hosts a number of applications and subsystems, including the messaging server application 114, an image processing system 116, and a social network system 122. The messaging server application 114 implements a number of message-processing technologies and functions particularly related to the aggregation and other processing of content (e.g., textual and multimedia content) included in messages received from multiple instances of the messaging client application 104. As will be described in further detail, the text and media content from multiple sources may be aggregated into collections of content (e.g., called stories or galleries). These collections are then made available, by the messaging server application 114, to the messaging client application 104. Other processor- and memory-intensive processing of data may also be performed server-side by the messaging server application 114, in view of the hardware requirements for such processing.

The application server 112 also includes the image processing system 116, which is dedicated to performing various image processing operations, typically with respect to images or video received within the payload of a message at the messaging server application 114.

The social network system 122 supports various social networking functions and services, and makes these functions and services available to the messaging server application 114. To this end, the social network system 122 maintains and accesses an entity graph (e.g., entity graph 304 in FIG. 3) within the database 120. Examples of functions and services supported by the social network system 122 include the identification of other users of the messaging system 100 with whom a particular user has relationships or whom the particular user is “following,” and also the identification of other entities and interests of a particular user.

The application server 112 is communicatively coupled to a database server 118, which facilitates access to a database 120 in which is stored data associated with messages processed by the messaging server application 114.

FIG. 2 is block diagram illustrating further details regarding the messaging system 100, according to example embodiments. Specifically, the messaging system 100 is shown to comprise the messaging client application 104 and the application server 112, which in turn embody a number of subsystems, namely an ephemeral timer system 202, a collection management system 204, an annotation system 206, and an entity system 210.

The ephemeral timer system 202 is responsible for enforcing the temporary access to content permitted by the messaging client application 104 and the messaging server application 114. To this end, the ephemeral timer system 202 incorporates a number of timers that, based on duration and display parameters associated with a message or collection of messages (e.g., a story), selectively display and enable access to messages and associated content via the messaging client application 104. Further details regarding the operation of the ephemeral timer system 202 are provided below.

The collection management system 204 is responsible for managing collections of media (e.g., collections of text, image, video, and audio data). In some examples, a collection of content (e.g., messages, including images, video, text, and audio) may be organized into an “event gallery” or an “event story.” Such a collection may be made available for a specified time period, such as the duration of an event to which the content relates. For example, content relating to a music concert may be made available as a “story” for the duration of that music concert. The collection management system 204 may also be responsible for publishing an icon that provides notification of the existence of a particular collection to the user interface of the messaging client application 104.

The collection management system 204 furthermore includes a curation interface 208 that allows a collection manager to manage and curate a particular collection of content. For example, the curation interface 208 enables an event organizer to curate a collection of content relating to a specific event (e.g., delete inappropriate content or redundant messages). Additionally, the collection management system 204 employs machine vision (or image recognition technology) and content rules to automatically curate a content collection. In certain embodiments, compensation may be paid to a user for inclusion of user-generated content into a collection. In such cases, the curation interface 208 operates to automatically make payments to such users for the use of their content.

The annotation system 206 provides various functions that enable a user to annotate or otherwise modify or edit media content associated with a message. For example, the annotation system 206 provides functions related to the generation and publishing of media overlays for messages processed by the messaging system 100. The annotation system 206 operatively supplies a media overlay (e.g., a filter) to the messaging client application 104 based on a geolocation of the client device 102. In another example, the annotation system 206 operatively supplies a media overlay to the messaging client application 104 based on other information, such as social network information of the user of the client device 102. A media overlay may include audio and visual content and visual effects. Examples of audio and visual content include pictures, text, logos, animations, and sound effects. An example of a visual effect includes color overlaying. The audio and visual content or the visual effects can be applied to a media content item (e.g., a photo) at the client device 102. For example, the media overlay includes text that can be overlaid on top of a photograph generated by the client device 102. In another example, the media overlay includes an identification of a location (e.g., Venice Beach), a name of a live event, or a name of a merchant (e.g., Beach Coffee House). In another example, the annotation system 206 uses the geolocation of the client device 102 to identify a media overlay that includes the name of a merchant at the geolocation of the client device 102. The media overlay may include other indicia associated with the merchant. The media overlays may be stored in the database 120 and accessed through the database server 118.

In one example embodiment, the annotation system 206 provides a user-based publication platform that enables users to select a geolocation on a map and upload content associated with the selected geolocation. The user may also specify circumstances under which particular content should be offered to other users. The annotation system 206 generates a media overlay that includes the uploaded content and associates the uploaded content with the selected geolocation.

In another example embodiment, the annotation system 206 provides a merchant-based publication platform that enables merchants to select a particular media overlay associated with a geolocation via a bidding process. For example, the annotation system 206 associates the media overlay of a highest-bidding merchant with a corresponding geolocation for a predefined amount of time.

The entity system 210 comprises one or more neural networks configured to identify an entity referenced by a multimodal message, as discussed in further detail below.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating data 300 which may be stored in the database 120 of the messaging server system 108, according to certain example embodiments. While the content of the database 120 is shown to comprise a number of tables, it will be appreciated that the data could be stored in other types of data structures (e.g., as an object-oriented database).

The database 120 includes message data stored within a message table 314. An entity table 302 stores entity data, including an entity graph 304. Entities for which records are maintained within the entity table 302 may include individuals, corporate entities, organizations, objects, places, events, and so forth. Regardless of type, any entity regarding which the messaging server system 108 stores data may be a recognized entity. Each entity is provided with a unique identifier, as well as an entity type identifier (not shown).

The entity graph 304 furthermore stores information regarding relationships and associations between or among entities. Such relationships may be social, professional (e.g., work at a common corporation or organization), interest-based, or activity-based, for example.

The database 120 also stores annotation data, in the example form of filters, in an annotation table 312. Filters for which data is stored within the annotation table 312 are associated with and applied to videos (for which data is stored in a video table 310) and/or images (for which data is stored in an image table 308). Filters, in one example, are overlays that are displayed as overlaid on an image or video during presentation to a recipient user. Filters may be of various types, including user-selected filters from a gallery of filters presented to a sending user by the messaging client application 104 when the sending user is composing a message. Other types of filters include geolocation filters (also known as geo-filters), which may be presented to a sending user based on geographic location. For example, geolocation filters specific to a neighborhood or special location may be presented within a user interface by the messaging client application 104, based on geolocation information determined by a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit of the client device 102. Another type of filter is a data filter, which may be selectively presented to a sending user by the messaging client application 104, based on other inputs or information gathered by the client device 102 during the message creation process. Examples of data filters include a current temperature at a specific location, a current speed at which a sending user is traveling, a battery life for a client device 102, or the current time.

Other annotation data that may be stored within the image table 308 is so-called “lens” data. A “lens” may be a real-time special effect and sound that may be added to an image or a video.

As mentioned above, the video table 310 stores video data which, in one embodiment, is associated with messages for which records are maintained within the message table 314. Similarly, the image table 308 stores image data associated with messages for which message data is stored in the message table 314. The entity table 302 may associate various annotations from the annotation table 312 with various images and videos stored in the image table 308 and the video table 310.

A story table 306 stores data regarding collections of messages and associated image, video, or audio data, which are compiled into a collection (e.g., a story or a gallery). The creation of a particular collection may be initiated by a particular user (e.g., each user for whom a record is maintained in the entity table 302). A user may create a “personal story” in the form of a collection of content that has been created and sent/broadcast by that user. To this end, the user interface of the messaging client application 104 may include an icon that is user-selectable to enable a sending user to add specific content to his or her personal story.

A collection may also constitute a “live story,” which is a collection of content from multiple users that is created manually, automatically, or using a combination of manual and automatic techniques. For example, a “live story” may constitute a curated stream of user-submitted content from various locations and events. Users whose client devices 102 have location services enabled and are at a common location or event at a particular time may, for example, be presented with an option, via a user interface of the messaging client application 104, to contribute content to a particular live story. The live story may be identified to the user by the messaging client application 104 based on his or her location. The end result is a “live story” told from a community perspective.

A further type of content collection is known as a “location story,” which enables a user whose client device 102 is located within a specific geographic location (e.g., on a college or university campus) to contribute to a particular collection. In some embodiments, a contribution to a location story may require a second degree of authentication to verify that the end user belongs to a specific organization or other entity (e.g., is a student on the university campus).

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a structure of a message 400, according to some embodiments, generated by a messaging client application 104 for communication to a further messaging client application 104 or the messaging server application 114. The content of a particular message 400 is used to populate the message table 314 stored within the database 120, accessible by the messaging server application 114. Similarly, the content of a message 400 is stored in memory as “in-transit” or “in-flight” data of the client device 102 or the application server 112. The message 400 is shown to include the following components:

-   -   A message identifier 402: a unique identifier that identifies         the message 400.     -   A message text payload 404: text, to be generated by a user via         a user interface of the client device 102, and that is included         in the message 400.     -   A message image payload 406: image data captured by a camera         component of a client device 102 or retrieved from memory of a         client device 102, and that is included in the message 400.     -   A message video payload 408: video data captured by a camera         component or retrieved from a memory component of the client         device 102, and that is included in the message 400.     -   A message audio payload 410: audio data captured by a microphone         or retrieved from the memory component of the client device 102,         and that is included in the message 400.     -   Message annotations 412: annotation data (e.g., filters,         stickers, or other enhancements) that represents annotations to         be applied to the message image payload 406, message video         payload 408, or message audio payload 410 of the message 400.     -   A message duration parameter 414: a parameter value indicating,         in seconds, the amount of time for which content of the message         400 (e.g., the message image payload 406, message video payload         408, and message audio payload 410) is to be presented or made         accessible to a user via the messaging client application 104.     -   A message geolocation parameter 416: geolocation data (e.g.,         latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates) associated with the         content payload of the message 400. Multiple message geolocation         parameter 416 values may be included in the payload, with each         of these parameter values being associated with respective         content items included in the content (e.g., a specific image in         the message image payload 406, or a specific video in the         message video payload 408).     -   A message story identifier 418: identifies values identifying         one or more content collections (e.g., “stories”) with which a         particular content item in the message image payload 406 of the         message 400 is associated. For example, multiple images within         the message image payload 406 may each be associated with         multiple content collections using identifier values.     -   A message tag 420: one or more tags, each of which is indicative         of the subject matter of content included in the message         payload. For example, where a particular image included in the         message image payload 406 depicts an animal (e.g., a lion), a         tag value may be included within the message tag 420 that is         indicative of the relevant animal. Tag values may be generated         manually, based on user input, or may be automatically generated         using, for example, image recognition.     -   A message sender identifier 422: an identifier (e.g., a         messaging system identifier, email address, or device         identifier) indicative of a user of the client device 102 on         which the message 400 was generated and from which the message         400 was sent.     -   A message receiver identifier 424: an identifier (e.g., a         messaging system identifier, email address, or device         identifier) indicative of a user of the client device 102 to         which the message 400 is addressed.

The contents (e.g., values) of the various components of the message 400 may be pointers to locations in tables within which content data values are stored. For example, an image value in the message image payload 406 may be a pointer to (or address of) a location within the image table 308. Similarly, values within the message video payload 408 may point to data stored within the video table 310, values stored within the message annotations 412 may point to data stored in the annotation table 312, values stored within the message story identifier 418 may point to data stored in the story table 306, and values stored within the message sender identifier 422 and the message receiver identifier 424 may point to user records stored within the entity table 302.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an access-limiting process 500, in terms of which access to content (e.g., an ephemeral message 502, and associated multimedia payload of data) or a content collection (e.g., an ephemeral message story 504) may be time-limited (e.g., made ephemeral).

An ephemeral message 502 is shown to be associated with a message duration parameter 506, the value of which determines an amount of time that the ephemeral message 502 will be displayed to a receiving user of the ephemeral message 502 by the messaging client application 104. In one embodiment, where the messaging client application 104 is a social media application client, an ephemeral message 502 is viewable by a receiving user for up to a maximum of 10 seconds, depending on the amount of time that the sending user specifies using the message duration parameter 506.

The message duration parameter 506 and the message receiver identifier 424 are shown to be inputs to a message timer 512, which is responsible for determining the amount of time that the ephemeral message 502 is shown to a particular receiving user identified by the message receiver identifier 424. In particular, the ephemeral message 502 will only be shown to the relevant receiving user for a time period determined by the value of the message duration parameter 506. The message timer 512 is shown to provide output to a more generalized ephemeral timer system 202, which is responsible for the overall timing of display of content (e.g., an ephemeral message 502) to a receiving user.

The ephemeral message 502 is shown in FIG. 5 to be included within an ephemeral message story 504 (e.g., a personal story, or an event story). The ephemeral message story 504 has an associated story duration parameter 508, a value of which determines a time duration for which the ephemeral message story 504 is presented and accessible to users of the messaging system 100. The story duration parameter 508, for example, may be the duration of a music concert, where the ephemeral message story 504 is a collection of content pertaining to that concert. Alternatively, a user (either the owning user or a curator user) may specify the value for the story duration parameter 508 when performing the setup and creation of the ephemeral message story 504.

Additionally, each ephemeral message 502 within the ephemeral message story 504 has an associated story participation parameter 510, a value of which determines the duration of time for which the ephemeral message 502 will be accessible within the context of the ephemeral message story 504. Accordingly, a particular ephemeral message 502 may “expire” and become inaccessible within the context of the ephemeral message story 504, prior to the ephemeral message story 504 itself expiring in terms of the story duration parameter 508. The story duration parameter 508, story participation parameter 510, and message receiver identifier 424 each provide input to a story timer 514, which operationally determines whether a particular ephemeral message 502 of the ephemeral message story 504 will be displayed to a particular receiving user and, if so, for how long. Note that the ephemeral message story 504 is also aware of the identity of the particular receiving user as a result of the message receiver identifier 424.

Accordingly, the story timer 514 operationally controls the overall lifespan of an associated ephemeral message story 504, as well as an individual ephemeral message 502 included in the ephemeral message story 504. In one embodiment, each and every ephemeral message 502 within the ephemeral message story 504 remains viewable and accessible for a time period specified by the story duration parameter 508. In a further embodiment, a certain ephemeral message 502 may expire, within the context of the ephemeral message story 504, based on a story participation parameter 510. Note that a message duration parameter 506 may still determine the duration of time for which a particular ephemeral message 502 is displayed to a receiving user, even within the context of the ephemeral message story 504. Accordingly, the message duration parameter 506 determines the duration of time that a particular ephemeral message 502 is displayed to a receiving user, regardless of whether the receiving user is viewing that ephemeral message 502 inside or outside the context of an ephemeral message story 504.

The ephemeral timer system 202 may furthermore operationally remove a particular ephemeral message 502 from the ephemeral message story 504 based on a determination that it has exceeded an associated story participation parameter 510. For example, when a sending user has established a story participation parameter 510 of 24 hours from posting, the ephemeral timer system 202 will remove the relevant ephemeral message 502 from the ephemeral message story 504 after the specified 24 hours. The ephemeral timer system 202 also operates to remove an ephemeral message story 504 either when the story participation parameter 510 for each and every ephemeral message 502 within the ephemeral message story 504 has expired, or when the ephemeral message story 504 itself has expired in terms of the story duration parameter 508.

In certain use cases, a creator of a particular ephemeral message story 504 may specify an indefinite story duration parameter 508. In this case, the expiration of the story participation parameter 510 for the last remaining ephemeral message 502 within the ephemeral message story 504 will determine when the ephemeral message story 504 itself expires. In this case, a new ephemeral message 502, added to the ephemeral message story 504, with a new story participation parameter 510, effectively extends the life of an ephemeral message story 504 to equal the value of the story participation parameter 510.

In response to the ephemeral timer system 202 determining that an ephemeral message story 504 has expired (e.g., is no longer accessible), the ephemeral timer system 202 communicates with the messaging system 100 (e.g., specifically, the messaging client application 104) to cause an indicium (e.g., an icon) associated with the relevant ephemeral message story 504 to no longer be displayed within a user interface of the messaging client application 104. Similarly, when the ephemeral timer system 202 determines that the message duration parameter 506 for a particular ephemeral message 502 has expired, the ephemeral timer system 202 causes the messaging client application 104 to no longer display an indicium (e.g., an icon or textual identification) associated with the ephemeral message 502.

FIG. 6 shows example functional components of an entity system 210, according to some example embodiments. As illustrated, the entity system 210 comprises an interface engine 605, an image engine 610, a word engine 615, a character engine 620, an attention engine 625, a selection engine 630, an entity engine 635, a lexicon engine 640, and a content engine 645. The interface engine 605 is configured to identify a dataset (e.g., a multimodal message) in which an entity is to be selected as the subject of the dataset. The image engine 610 is configured to implement one or image based machine learning schemes, e.g., a convolutional neural network, to generate vector embedding data. The word engine 615 is a bidirectional recurrent neural network that receives individual words as neuron inputs to generate a word embedding. The character engine 620 is an additional bidirectional recurrent neural network that is configured to receive individual characters as inputs to generate a character embedding. The attention engine 625 is trained to receive the embedding generated from the multimodal message and output weightings that emphasize or de-emphasize the embeddings such that information gain is maximized. The selection engine 630 is configured to combine the weighted embeddings and find the closest result vector to identify an entity to be output. The entity engine 635 generates embeddings (e.g., knowledge base embeddings, discussed in detail below) for each possible entity. The lexicon engine 640 performs Levenshtein character-based distance analysis between characters of a multimodal message and potential entity names. The content engine 645 is configured to select overlay content that has been pre-associated with an identified entity. In some example embodiments, the identified entity is transmitted to the annotation system 206 for further processing (e.g., further annotation of an ephemeral message).

FIG. 7 shows a flow diagram of an example method 700 for identifying an entity from a data set, such as a multimodal message, according to some example embodiments. At operation 705, the interface engine 605 identifies a dataset referencing an entity as a subject. For example, the dataset may be a multimodal ephemeral message having an image and one or more words referencing a famous person. At operation 710, the image engine generates an image vector representation (e.g., an embedding) from the image of the multimodal message. For example, the image engine 610 may implement a convolutional neural network (CNN) that receives the image of the multimodal message as an input and outputs an embedding as an output.

At operation 715, the word engine 615 generates a word vector representation (e.g., an embedding) of one or more words included in the multimodal message. For example, the word engine 615 implements a recurrent neural network, such as a bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (LSTM), to receive words of the multimodal message as an input, and outputs an embedding representation created from the words.

At operation 720, the character engine 620 generates a character vector representation (e.g., an embedding) of one or more characters in the multimodal message. The characters may be from the words of the multimodal message. For example, the word “Justin” may be an input as a word and used in operation 715 to generate a word embedding, and the characters of “Justin” (i.e., each letter) can further serve as individual inputs into character engine 620 to generate a character embedding. Further, in some example embodiments, the characters are not part of any word. For example, the characters can be symbols, e.g., emojis, punctuation marks, emoticons, and so forth, that are included in the multimodal message.

At operation 725, the attention engine 625 generates weightings for the embeddings generated in operations 710, 715, and 720. In some example embodiments, the attention net implements a neural network trained to output embeddings that are in the same space of knowledge base vectors, as discussed in further detail below. The weightings may be a list of three values, where each value indicates the importance of the different types of embeddings. For example, the weightings can be {x_(image), x_(word), x_(character)}, where the first value is a numerical weighting for the image vector representation, the second value is a numerical value for the word vector representation, and the third value is a numerical value for the character embedding representation.

At operation 730, the attention engine 625 combines the weightings with their corresponding vector representations to amplify or attenuate the vector representations. For example, x_(image) is multiplied against each value (e.g., element) of the image vector representation.

At operation 735, the attention engine 625 combines the weighted vector representations to generate a combined weighted vector for the multimodal message. For example, the weighted image vector representation, the weighted word vector representation, and the weighted character vector representation are input into a full connected neural network (e.g., a stacked REctified Linear Unit (RELU) network) to output a combined vector representation.

At operation 740, the selection engine 630 selects an entity as the subject of the multimodal message. In some example embodiments, the combined vector representation is compared against entity vectors generated for each possible entity. The entity whose entity vector is closest to the combined vector is selected at operation 740.

FIG. 8 shows a flow diagram of an example method 800 for generating results vector data and selecting an entity as the subject of a message, e.g. multimodal message, according to some example embodiments. At operation 805, the entity engine 635 generates knowledge base (KB) vector representations. The KB vector representations are stored in a results vector database. The entity engine 635 implements a neural network to generate a word embedding from an article describing an entity. For example, a Justin Bieber KB vector representation can be generated from a Wikipedia® article about Justin Bieber. The entity engine 635 can generate KB vectors for other entities in a similar manner (e.g., sets of texts such as encyclopedia articles that entities).

At operation 810, the lexicon engine 640 generates lexical vector representations. The lexical vector representations are also stored in a data store, such as a result vector database. The lexicon engine 640 can generate lexical vector representations by using a Deep Levenshtein scheme to compare the character word embedding (generated at operation 720 in FIG. 7) against each possible entity. Further details of lexical vector representations are discussed below with reference to FIG. 10.

At operation 815, the selection engine 630 combines the entity and lexical representations by adding them and storing the result as a final result vector for each entity. At operation 820, each of the final result vectors are ranked against the combined weighted vector generated from the multimodal message (the vector generated at operation 735 in FIG. 7). At operation 825, the entity whose final result vector is closest to the combined weighted vector is selected as the subject of the multimodal message.

FIG. 9 shows a functional architecture 900 for implementing entity identification from sparse data, such as data from a multimodal message that has five or fewer words, according to some example embodiments. According to some example embodiments, let X={x^((i))}_(i=1) ^(N) or be a set of N social media posts for disambiguation with corresponding ground truth named entities Y={y^((i))}_(i=1) ^(N) for y∈Y_(KB), where Y_(KB) is a set of entities in KB (the Knowledge Base). Each input sample is composed of three modalities: x={x_(w), x_(v), x_(c)}, where x_(w)={x_(w,t)}_(t=1) ^(L) ^(w) is a sequence of words with length Le surrounding a mention in a post, x_(v) is an image associated with a post, x_(c)={y_(c,t)}_(t=1) ^(L) ^(c) is a sequence of characters comprising a mention, respectively. Each output label is represented in two modalities: y={y_(KB); y_(c)}, where y_(KB) is a Knowledge Base label embeddings representation, and y_(c) is a character embeddings representation of KB entities.

A named entity task is formulated as:

$\begin{matrix} {y = {\underset{y^{\prime} \in Y_{KB}}{{\arg\max}\mspace{11mu}}\;{{sim}\left( {{f_{x\rightarrow y}(x)},y^{\prime}} \right)}}} & \; \end{matrix}$ where f_(x→y) is a function with learnable parameters that project multimodal input samples (x) into the same space as label representations (y), and sim( ) produces a similar score between prediction and ground truth KB entities.

Referring to FIG. 9, multimodal message 905 comprises an image, one or more words, and character data (e.g., data that can describe characters of a word, symbols, punctuation, emojis). The image 910 of the multimodal message 905 is input into a CNN 925, which generates an image vector representation 940.

The words 915 are input into a recurrent neural network, such as a bidirectional LSTM network 930, which generates word vector representation 945. The bidirectional LSTM network 930 can be modeled by representing textual context of surrounding words of a mention with a bidirectional LSTM language model with distributed word semantics embeddings. The bidirectional LSTM can be implemented as follows: i _(t)=σ(W _(xi) h _(t-1) +W _(ci) c _(t-1)) c _(t)=(1−i _(t))⊙c _(t-1) +i _(t)⊙ tan h(W _(xc) x _(w,t) +W _(hc) h _(t-1)) o _(t)=σ(W _(xo) x _(w,t) +W _(ho) h _(t-1) +W _(co) c _(t)) h _(t) =o _(t)⊙ tan h(c _(t)) w(x _(w))=[ h _(L) _(w) ;

] where h_(t) is an LSTM hidden layer output at decoding step t, and w(x_(w)) is an output textual representation of bidirectional LSTM concatenating left and right context at the last decoding step t=L_(w). Biases for gates are omitted for simplicity of formulation.

According to some example embodiments, word embeddings for the bidirectional LSTM language model are obtained from an unsupervised learning model that learns co-occurrences statistics of words from a large external corpus (e.g., an online encyclopedia, social media posts, a user-generated database that describes entities). The trained model learns word embeddings as distributed semantics of words. In some example embodiments, pre-trained embeddings from the Stanford GloVe model are implemented.

The characters 920 of the multimodal message 905 are input into a bidirectional LSTM network 935 which outputs character vector representation 950. The bidirectional LSTM network 930 and the bidirectional LSTM network 935 are similar in that they are both recurrent neural networks; however, the bidirectional LSTM network 930 is configured for words as inputs into each neuron, whereas the bidirectional LSTM 935 is configured to receive characters as inputs into each neuron.

The vector representations 940, 945, and 950 are input into an attention net 955, which generates vector weightings 960. In some example embodiments, the vector weighting 960 comprises three values in an array. The first value is a weighting for the image vector representation, the second value is a weighting for the word vector representation 945, and the third value is a weighting for the character vector representation 950. The vectors weighting 960 is then combined with the vector representations 940, 945, and 950. In particular, for example, the first value of vector weighting 960 is multiplied with the image vector representation 940 at the multiplier 965. Further, the second value of the vector weighting 960 is multiplied by the vector representation 945 at multiplier 970. Further, the third value of vector weighting 960 is multiplied with vector 950 at the multiplier 975. The output of the multipliers is 965, 970, and 975 are then vectors weighted to represent the importance of the image data of the multimodal message, the importance of the word data of the multimodal message, and the importance of the character data of the multimodal message, The importance of each type (e.g., each vector representation type) is understood to be how useful each of the datatypes are in indicating the subject entity being referenced in the multimodal message.

In particular, according to some example embodiments, an attention net 955 may be modeled as follows: [a _(w) ;a _(c) ;a _(v)]=σ(W _(m)·[xw;xc;x _(v)]+b _(m))

${\alpha_{m} = {\frac{\exp\left( a_{m} \right)}{\sum\limits_{m^{\prime} \in {\{{w,c,v}\}}}{\exp\left( a_{m^{\prime}} \right)}}{\forall{m \in \left\{ {w,c,v} \right\}}}}}{\overset{\_}{x} = \ {\sum\limits_{m \in {\{{w,c,v}\}}}\alpha_{m^{x}m}}}$ where α=[α_(w), α_(c), α_(v)]∈R³ is an attention vector, and x is a final context vector that maximizes information gain.

The attention net 955 model is trained to produce a higher dot product similarity between the projected embedding with a correct label, than the dot product generated with an incorrect negative label in both the knowledge graph label embeddings and the lexical embedding spaces. Margin is defined as the similarity between a ground truth sample and a negative sample. The target task is then implemented using a label-producing nearest neighbor (1-NN) classifier as follows:

$\begin{matrix} {{1 - {{NN}(x)}} = {{\underset{{({y_{KB},y_{c}})} \in Y_{KB}}{\arg\max}{{f\left( \overset{¯}{x} \right)} \cdot y_{KB}^{T}}} + {{g\left( x_{c} \right)} \cdot y_{c}^{T}}}} & \; \end{matrix}$

The outputs of the multipliers 965, 970, and 975 are input into a fully connected layer 980. As illustrated, the fully connected layer 980 may be implemented as one or more stacked RELUs. The output of the fully connected layer 980 is the combined weighted vector 985.

The result data store 990 is illustrated as a table with a first column for each possible entity, a second column for KB embeddings, and a third column for lexical embeddings. As discussed above, the KB embeddings are generated for each entity from a set of text (e.g., an encyclopedia article) that describes the entity. The lexical embeddings are generated by string net 995 using a Levenshtein scheme that compares the character vector representation 950 against the spelling or characters of each entity's name. Further details about the string net 995 and the Levenshtein scheme used to generate lexical embeddings are discussed below with reference to FIG. 10. Although the result data store 990 is displayed as a table, it is appreciated to one of ordinary skill in the art that the result data store can be other types of structured data, such as column families (e.g. a data structure from NoSQL).

To determine which entity is a subject of multimodal message 905, the combined weighted vector 985 is compared to the vector data stored in the result data store 990. In particular, according to some example embodiments, the KB embedding for Justin Bieber is added to the lexical embedding for Justin Bieber and stored as a final result vector for Justin Bieber. The final result vector is then compared against combined weighted vector 985 to determine how similar the two vectors are.

Similarly, the KB embedding for Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister of Canada as of 2017) is added to the entity lexical embedding for Justin Trudeau and stored as a final result vector for Justin Trudeau. The final result vector for Justin Trudeau is then compared against combined weighted vector 985 to also determine the similarity between the two vectors. As a final illustrated example, the KB embedding for Austin is added to the entity lexical embedding for Austin and stored as a final result vector for Austin (a generic person named Austin). Then the final result vector of Austin is compared against combined weighted vector 985 determine the similarity between the two vectors. The similarity between vectors is the difference between the vectors, according to some example embodiments. The entity that has a final result vector that is closest to the combined weighted vector 985 is then selected as the entity of the multimodal message 905.

According to some example embodiments, the selection engine 630 is modeled to select an entity using the result database to minimize the following:

${\min\limits_{w}{L_{KB}\left( {x,{y_{KB};W_{w}},{W_{v}W_{f}}} \right)}} + {L_{c}\left( {x_{c},{y_{c};W_{g}}} \right)} + {R(W)}$ where

$\begin{matrix} {{L_{KB}( \cdot )} = {\frac{1}{N}{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}{\sum\limits_{\overset{\sim}{y} \neq y_{KB}^{(i)}}{\max\left\lbrack {0,{{\overset{˜}{y} \cdot y_{KB}^{(i)}} - {{f\left( {\overset{¯}{x}}^{(i)} \right)} \cdot \left( {y_{KB}^{(i)} - \overset{˜}{y}} \right)^{T}}}} \right\rbrack}}}}} &  \end{matrix}$ and

$\begin{matrix} {{L_{c}( \cdot )} = {\frac{1}{N}{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}{\sum\limits_{\overset{\sim}{y} \neq y_{c}^{(i)}}{\max\left\lbrack {0,{{\overset{˜}{y} \cdot y_{c}^{(i)}} - {{g\left( x_{c}^{(i)} \right)} \cdot \left( {y_{c}^{(i)} - \overset{˜}{y}} \right)^{T}}}} \right\rbrack}}}}} &  \end{matrix}$ and

R(W): regularization,

where L_(KB)(·) is the supervised hinge rank loss for knowledge graph embeddings projection, L_(c)(·) is the loss for lexical mapping between mentions and KB entities, W={W_(f), W_(g), W_(w), W_(v)} are the learnable parameters for f, g, w, and v, respectively, {tilde over (y)} refers to the embeddings of negative samples randomly sampled from KB entities except the ground truth instance, R(W) is a weight decay regularization term, and x is a weighted average of three modalities x={x_(w); x_(v), x_(c)} via the modality attention model of attention net 955.

While come conventional NED tasks require perfect lexical match between mentions and their corresponding entities, in some example embodiments, the string net 995 accounts for differences in spellings (e.g., nicknames, mis-spellings, inconsistent notations, etc.) of input string data. In particular, and according to some example embodiments, the string net 995 may determine Levenshtein distance using one or more bidirectional LSTM layers, shared character embedding matrix, fully connected layers, and a dot product merge operation layer. More concisely, the optimization may be performed as follows:

$\min\limits_{c}{{{\frac{1}{2}\left( {\frac{{c\left( x_{c} \right)} \cdot {c\left( x_{c}^{\prime} \right)}^{T}}{{{c\left( x_{c} \right)}}{\left( x_{c}^{\prime} \right)}} + 1} \right)} - {{sim}\left( {x_{c},x_{c}^{\prime}} \right)}}}^{2}$ where c(·) is a bi-directional LSTM output vector for character sequence, sim(·) is an output of the Levenshtein network, producing a normalized similarity score with a range [0,1] based on Levenshtein edit distance, and (x_(c), x′_(c)) is any two pair of strings. The pairs are generated as training data, in some example embodiments, by artificially corrupting seed strings by varying degrees (e.g., additional, deletion, replacement).

The trained network is capable of producing a purely “lexical embedding” of a string without any semantic allusion (via c(·)), as well as predicting lexical similarity between two strings based on their distances in the embedding space. On a more intuitive level, this component effectively bypasses normalization steps, and instead incorporates lexical similarities between input mentions and output KB entities into the overall optimization of the disambiguation network. The string net 995 uses the by-product c(·) network to extract lexical embeddings of mentions and KB entities, and freezes c(·) in training of the disambiguation network. This approach significantly outperforms conventional schemes for obtaining character embeddings.

FIG. 10 shows the internal functional architecture 1000 of a string net 995, according to some example embodiments. The string net 995 is configured as a set of network components (e.g., LSTMs, RELUs) that implement Levenshtein comparisons. As is appreciated, the Levenshtein scheme measures the differences in characters between two strings (e.g., two words). Analyzing the similarity of characters mentioned in the multimodal message and characters of possible entities helps in identification of an entity (e.g., by creating lexical embeddings, as discussed above). As illustrated, according to some example embodiments, the functional architecture 1000 is configured as one or more layers that compare two strings. The strings are sequences of characters (e.g., words). String 1 may be vector 950 (which is generated from the first name Justin, of Justin Bieber) from multimodal message 905. String 2 may be the name of an entity of the result data store 990 (e.g., Austin, Justin Bieber, Justin Trudeau, etc.)

The functional architecture 1000 generates a lexical embedding by comparing each possible entry (e.g., as String 2) against the same character string (e.g., String 1) of the multimodal message. In particular, for example, string 2 could be Justin Bieber in a first iteration Justin Trudeau in a second iteration, and Austin in a third iteration, while String 1 is “Justin” in all iterations.

In particular, the character embedding layer data 1005 (e.g., the two strings) are input into a LSTM layer 1010. The LSTM layer 1010 outputs embeddings, which are depicted in a lexical embedding layer (which are in beddings for each respective string). The embeddings of the lexical embedding layers 1015 are input into two respective fully connected layers, e.g., two RELUs, in the network layer 1020. The two respective outputs of the network layer 1020 are then compared in the comparison layer 1025, which uses cosine similarity to generate the approximate Levenshtein score that indicates the similarity between the two strings being compared.

FIG. 11 shows an example multimodal message, according to some example embodiments. As illustrated, the multimodal message includes an image 1100, and one or more words 1115. The one or more words may be a caption that describes what is going on in the multimodal message. For example, the image 1100 is of an example subject 1105 (e.g., Justin Bieber) on a concert stage in front of an audience 1110, and the user (not depicted) has captured an image of the subject and added the caption “JUUUUUUSTIN!!!!<3<3<3” as an overlay. The subject's name is misspelled to connote excitement, and the “<3” represent heart emoticons.

FIG. 12 shows an example modified multimodal message created in response to identification of the likely entity being referenced in the original multimodal message, according to some example embodiments. In particular, after implementing methods 700 and 800, discussed above, Justin Bieber is determined as the subject of the multimodal message. In response to determining that Justin Bieber is the subject of the multimodal message, one or more items of overlay content 1200 can be recommended to the user, who then may overlay the overlay content 1200 on the multimodal message and publish it as an ephemeral message 502. In some example embodiments, each of the potential entities that can be output as the subject of a multimodal message is pre-associated with overlay content. In those example embodiments, when an entity is identified as the likely subject of a multimodal message, the pre-associated overlay content (e.g., overlay content 1200) can be retrieved from a data store and used to create a modified multimodal message to be published on a social network or otherwise stored to memory of a client device.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating an example software architecture 1306, which may be used in conjunction with various hardware architectures herein described. FIG. 13 is a non-limiting example of a software architecture, and it will be appreciated that many other architectures may be implemented to facilitate the functionality described herein. The software architecture 1306 may execute on hardware such as a machine 1400 of FIG. 14 that includes, among other things, processors, memory, and input/output (I/O) components. A representative hardware layer 1352 is illustrated and can represent, for example, the machine 1400 of FIG. 14. The representative hardware layer 1352 includes a processing unit 1354 having associated executable instructions 1304. The executable instructions 1304 represent the executable instructions of the software architecture 1306, including implementation of the methods, components, and so forth described herein. The hardware layer 1352 also includes a memory/storage 1356, which also has the executable instructions 1304. The hardware layer 1352 may also comprise other hardware 1358.

In the example architecture of FIG. 13, the software architecture 1306 may be conceptualized as a stack of layers where each layer provides particular functionality. For example, the software architecture 1306 may include layers such as an operating system 1302, libraries 1320, frameworks/middleware 1318, applications 1316, and a presentation layer 1314. Operationally, the applications 1316 and/or other components within the layers may invoke API calls 1308 through the software stack and receive a response in the form of messages 1312. The layers illustrated are representative in nature and not all software architectures have all layers. For example, some mobile or special-purpose operating systems may not provide a frameworks/middleware 1318, while others may provide such a layer. Other software architectures may include additional or different layers.

The operating system 1302 may manage hardware resources and provide common services. The operating system 1302 may include, for example, a kernel 1322, services 1324, and drivers 1326. The kernel 1322 may act as an abstraction layer between the hardware and the other software layers. For example, the kernel 1322 may be responsible for memory management, processor management (e.g., scheduling), component management, networking, security settings, and so on. The services 1324 may provide other common services for the other software layers. The drivers 1326 are responsible for controlling or interfacing with the underlying hardware. For instance, the drivers 1326 include display drivers, camera drivers, Bluetooth® drivers, flash memory drivers, serial communication drivers (e.g., Universal Serial Bus (USB) drivers), Wi-Fi® drivers, audio drivers, power management drivers, and so forth depending on the hardware configuration.

The libraries 1320 provide a common infrastructure that is used by the applications 1316 and/or other components and/or layers. The libraries 1320 provide functionality that allows other software components to perform tasks in an easier fashion than by interfacing directly with the underlying operating system 1302 functionality (e.g., kernel 1322, services 1324, and/or drivers 1326). The libraries 1320 may include system libraries 1344 (e.g., C standard library) that may provide functions such as memory allocation functions, string manipulation functions, mathematical functions, and the like. In addition, the libraries 1320 may include API libraries 1346 such as media libraries (e.g., libraries to support presentation and manipulation of various media formats such as MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, or PNG), graphics libraries (e.g., an OpenGL framework that may be used to render 2D and 3D graphical content on a display), database libraries (e.g., SQLite that may provide various relational database functions), web libraries (e.g., WebKit that may provide web browsing functionality), and the like. The libraries 1320 may also include a wide variety of other libraries 1348 to provide many other APIs to the applications 1316 and other software components/modules.

The frameworks/middleware 1318 provide a higher-level common infrastructure that may be used by the applications 1316 and/or other software components/modules. For example, the frameworks/middleware 1318 may provide various graphic user interface (GUI) functions, high-level resource management, high-level location services, and so forth. The frameworks/middleware 1318 may provide a broad spectrum of other APIs that may be utilized by the applications 1316 and/or other software components/modules, some of which may be specific to a particular operating system 1302 or platform.

The applications 1316 include built-in applications 1338 and/or third-party applications 1340. Examples of representative built-in applications 1338 may include, but are not limited to, a contacts application, a browser application, a book reader application, a location application, a media application, a messaging application, and/or a game application. The third-party applications 1340 may include an application developed using the ANDROID™ or IOS™ software development kit (SDK) by an entity other than the vendor of the particular platform, and may be mobile software running on a mobile operating system such as IOS™, ANDROID™, WINDOWS® Phone, or other mobile operating systems. The third-party applications 1340 may invoke the API calls 1308 provided by the mobile operating system (such as the operating system 1302) to facilitate functionality described herein.

The applications 1316 may use built-in operating system functions (e.g., kernel 1322, services 1324, and/or drivers 1326), libraries 1320, and frameworks/middleware 1318 to create user interfaces to interact with users of the system. Alternatively, or additionally, in some systems, interactions with a user may occur through a presentation layer, such as the presentation layer 1314. In these systems, the application/component “logic” can be separated from the aspects of the application/component that interact with a user.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram illustrating components of a machine 1400, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, FIG. 14 shows a diagrammatic representation of the machine 1400 in the example form of a computer system, within which instructions 1416 (e.g., software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code) for causing the machine 1400 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein may be executed. As such, the instructions 1416 may be used to implement modules or components described herein. The instructions 1416 transform the general, non-programmed machine 1400 into a particular machine 1400 programmed to carry out the described and illustrated functions in the manner described. In alternative embodiments, the machine 1400 operates as a standalone device or may be coupled (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networked deployment, the machine 1400 may operate in the capacity of a server machine or a client machine in a server-client network environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment. The machine 1400 may comprise, but not be limited to, a server computer, a client computer, a personal computer (PC), a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a netbook, a set-top box (STB), a personal digital assistant (PDA), an entertainment media system, a cellular telephone, a smartphone, a mobile device, a wearable device (e.g., a smart watch), a smart home device (e.g., a smart appliance), other smart devices, a web appliance, a network router, a network switch, a network bridge, or any machine capable of executing the instructions 1416, sequentially or otherwise, that specify actions to be taken by the machine 1400. Further, while only a single machine 1400 is illustrated, the term “machine” shall also be taken to include a collection of machines that individually or jointly execute the instructions 1416 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

The machine 1400 may include processors 1410, memory/storage 1430, and I/O components 1450, which may be configured to communicate with each other such as via a bus 1402. The memory/storage 1430 may include a memory 1432, such as a main memory, or other memory storage, and a storage unit 1436, both accessible to the processors 1410 such as via the bus 1402. The storage unit 1436 and memory 1432 store the instructions 1416 embodying any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein. The instructions 1416 may also reside, completely or partially, within the memory 1432, within the storage unit 1436, within at least one of the processors 1410 (e.g., within the processor cache memory accessible to processor units 1412 or 1414), or any suitable combination thereof, during execution thereof by the machine 1400. Accordingly, the memory 1432, the storage unit 1436, and the memory of the processors 1410 are examples of machine-readable media.

The I/O components 1450 may include a wide variety of components to receive input, provide output, produce output, transmit information, exchange information, capture measurements, and so on. The specific I/O components 1450 that are included in a particular machine 1400 will depend on the type of machine. For example, portable machines such as mobile phones will likely include a touch input device or other such input mechanisms, while a headless server machine will likely not include such a touch input device. It will be appreciated that the I/O components 1450 may include many other components that are not shown in FIG. 14. The I/O components 1450 are grouped according to functionality merely for simplifying the following discussion and the grouping is in no way limiting. In various example embodiments, the I/O components 1450 may include output components 1452 and input components 1454. The output components 1452 may include visual components (e.g., a display such as a plasma display panel (PDP), a light-emitting diode (LED) display, a liquid-crystal display (LCD), a projector, or a cathode ray tube (CRT)), acoustic components (e.g., speakers), haptic components (e.g., a vibratory motor, resistance mechanisms), other signal generators, and so forth. The input components 1454 may include alphanumeric input components (e.g., a keyboard, a touch screen configured to receive alphanumeric input, a photo-optical keyboard, or other alphanumeric input components), point-based input components (e.g., a mouse, a touchpad, a trackball, a joystick, a motion sensor, or other pointing instruments), tactile input components (e.g., a physical button, a touch screen that provides location and/or force of touches or touch gestures, or other tactile input components), audio input components (e.g., a microphone), and the like.

In further example embodiments, the I/O components 1450 may include biometric components 1456, motion components 1458, environment components 1460, or position components 1462 among a wide array of other components. For example, the biometric components 1456 may include components to detect expressions (e.g., hand expressions, facial expressions, vocal expressions, body gestures, or eye tracking), measure biosignals (e.g., blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, perspiration, or brain waves), identify a person (e.g., voice identification, retinal identification, facial identification, fingerprint identification, or electroencephalogram-based identification), and the like. The motion components 1458 may include acceleration sensor components (e.g., accelerometer), gravitation sensor components, rotation sensor components (e.g., gyroscope), and so forth. The environment components 1460 may include, for example, illumination sensor components (e.g., photometer), temperature sensor components (e.g., one or more thermometers that detect ambient temperature), humidity sensor components, pressure sensor components (e.g., barometer), acoustic sensor components (e.g., one or more microphones that detect background noise), proximity sensor components (e.g., infrared sensors that detect nearby objects), gas sensors (e.g., gas sensors to detect concentrations of hazardous gases for safety or to measure pollutants in the atmosphere), or other components that may provide indications, measurements, or signals corresponding to a surrounding physical environment. The position components 1462 may include location sensor components (e.g., a GPS receiver component), altitude sensor components (e.g., altimeters or barometers that detect air pressure from which altitude may be derived), orientation sensor components (e.g., magnetometers), and the like.

Communication may be implemented using a wide variety of technologies. The I/O components 1450 may include communication components 1464 operable to couple the machine 1400 to a network 1480 or devices 1470 via a coupling 1482 and a coupling 1472, respectively. For example, the communication components 1464 may include a network interface component or other suitable device to interface with the network 1480. In further examples, the communication components 1464 may include wired communication components, wireless communication components, cellular communication components, near field communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components to provide communication via other modalities. The devices 1470 may be another machine or any of a wide variety of peripheral devices (e.g., a peripheral device coupled via a USB).

Moreover, the communication components 1464 may detect identifiers or include components operable to detect identifiers. For example, the communication components 1464 may include radio frequency identification (RFID) tag reader components, NFC smart tag detection components, optical reader components (e.g., an optical sensor to detect one-dimensional barcodes such as Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode, multi-dimensional barcodes such as Quick Response (QR) code, Aztec code, Data Matrix, Dataglyph, MaxiCode, PDF418, Ultra Code, UCC RSS-2D barcode, and other optical codes), or acoustic detection components (e.g., microphones to identify tagged audio signals). In addition, a variety of information may be derived via the communication components 1464, such as location via Internet Protocol (IP) geolocation, location via Wi-Fi® signal triangulation, location via detecting an NFC beacon signal that may indicate a particular location, and so forth.

GLOSSARY

“CARRIER SIGNAL” in this context refers to any intangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions 1416 for execution by the machine 1400, and includes digital or analog communications signals or other intangible media to facilitate communication of such instructions 1416. Instructions 1416 may be transmitted or received over the network 1480 using a transmission medium via a network interface device and using any one of a number of well-known transfer protocols.

“CLIENT DEVICE” in this context refers to any machine 1400 that interfaces to a communications network 1480 to obtain resources from one or more server systems or other client devices 102. A client device 102 may be, but is not limited to, a mobile phone, desktop computer, laptop, PDA, smartphone, tablet, ultrabook, netbook, multi-processor system, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics system, game console, set-top box, or any other communication device that a user may use to access a network 1480.

“COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK” in this context refers to one or more portions of a network 1480 that may be an ad hoc network, an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a local area network (LAN), a wireless LAN (WLAN), a wide area network (WAN), a wireless WAN (WWAN), a metropolitan area network (MAN), the Internet, a portion of the Internet, a portion of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a plain old telephone service (POTS) network, a cellular telephone network, a wireless network, a Wi-Fi® network, another type of network, or a combination of two or more such networks. For example, a network or a portion of a network 1480 may include a wireless or cellular network and the coupling may be a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) connection, a Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) connection, or another type of cellular or wireless coupling. In this example, the coupling may implement any of a variety of types of data transfer technology, such as Single Carrier Radio Transmission Technology (1×RTT), Evolution-Data Optimized (EVDO) technology, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology, Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology, third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) including 3G, fourth generation wireless (4G) networks, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), Long-Term Evolution (LTE) standard, others defined by various standard-setting organizations, other long-range protocols, or other data transfer technology.

“EPHEMERAL MESSAGE” in this context refers to a message 400 that is accessible for a time-limited duration. An ephemeral message 502 may be a text, an image, a video, and the like. The access time for the ephemeral message 502 may be set by the message sender. Alternatively, the access time may be a default setting or a setting specified by the recipient. Regardless of the setting technique, the message 400 is transitory.

“MACHINE-READABLE MEDIUM” in this context refers to a component, a device, or other tangible media able to store instructions 1416 and data temporarily or permanently and may include, but is not limited to, random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), buffer memory, flash memory, optical media, magnetic media, cache memory, other types of storage (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM)), and/or any suitable combination thereof. The term “machine-readable medium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, or associated caches and servers) able to store instructions 1416. The term “machine-readable medium” shall also be taken to include any medium, or combination of multiple media, that is capable of storing instructions 1416 (e.g., code) for execution by a machine 1400, such that the instructions 1416, when executed by one or more processors 1410 of the machine 1400, cause the machine 1400 to perform any one or more of the methodologies described herein. Accordingly, a “machine-readable medium” refers to a single storage apparatus or device, as well as “cloud-based” storage systems or storage networks that include multiple storage apparatus or devices. The term “machine-readable medium” excludes signals per se.

“COMPONENT” in this context refers to a device, a physical entity, or logic having boundaries defined by function or subroutine calls, branch points, APIs, or other technologies that provide for the partitioning or modularization of particular processing or control functions. Components may be combined via their interfaces with other components to carry out a machine process. A component may be a packaged functional hardware unit designed for use with other components and a part of a program that usually performs a particular function of related functions. Components may constitute either software components (e.g., code embodied on a machine-readable medium) or hardware components. A “hardware component” is a tangible unit capable of performing certain operations and may be configured or arranged in a certain physical manner. In various example embodiments, one or more computer systems (e.g., a standalone computer system, a client computer system, or a server computer system) or one or more hardware components of a computer system (e.g., a processor 1412 or a group of processors 1410) may be configured by software (e.g., an application or application portion) as a hardware component that operates to perform certain operations as described herein. A hardware component may also be implemented mechanically, electronically, or any suitable combination thereof. For example, a hardware component may include dedicated circuitry or logic that is permanently configured to perform certain operations. A hardware component may be a special-purpose processor, such as a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). A hardware component may also include programmable logic or circuitry that is temporarily configured by software to perform certain operations. For example, a hardware component may include software executed by a general-purpose processor or other programmable processor. Once configured by such software, hardware components become specific machines (or specific components of a machine 1400) uniquely tailored to perform the configured functions and are no longer general-purpose processors 1410. It will be appreciated that the decision to implement a hardware component mechanically, in dedicated and permanently configured circuitry, or in temporarily configured circuitry (e.g., configured by software) may be driven by cost and time considerations. Accordingly, the phrase “hardware component” (or “hardware-implemented component”) should be understood to encompass a tangible entity, be that an entity that is physically constructed, permanently configured (e.g., hardwired), or temporarily configured (e.g., programmed) to operate in a certain manner or to perform certain operations described herein.

Considering embodiments in which hardware components are temporarily configured (e.g., programmed), each of the hardware components need not be configured or instantiated at any one instance in time. For example, where a hardware component comprises a general-purpose processor 1412 configured by software to become a special-purpose processor, the general-purpose processor 1412 may be configured as respectively different special-purpose processors (e.g., comprising different hardware components) at different times. Software accordingly configures a particular processor 1412 or processors 1410, for example, to constitute a particular hardware component at one instance of time and to constitute a different hardware component at a different instance of time.

Hardware components can provide information to, and receive information from, other hardware components. Accordingly, the described hardware components may be regarded as being communicatively coupled. Where multiple hardware components exist contemporaneously, communications may be achieved through signal transmission (e.g., over appropriate circuits and buses) between or among two or more of the hardware components. In embodiments in which multiple hardware components are configured or instantiated at different times, communications between or among such hardware components may be achieved, for example, through the storage and retrieval of information in memory structures to which the multiple hardware components have access. For example, one hardware component may perform an operation and store the output of that operation in a memory device to which it is communicatively coupled. A further hardware component may then, at a later time, access the memory device to retrieve and process the stored output. Hardware components may also initiate communications with input or output devices, and can operate on a resource (e.g., a collection of information).

The various operations of example methods described herein may be performed, at least partially, by one or more processors 1410 that are temporarily configured (e.g., by software) or permanently configured to perform the relevant operations. Whether temporarily or permanently configured, such processors 1410 may constitute processor-implemented components that operate to perform one or more operations or functions described herein. As used herein, “processor-implemented component” refers to a hardware component implemented using one or more processors 1410. Similarly, the methods described herein may be at least partially processor-implemented, with a particular processor 1412 or processors 1410 being an example of hardware. For example, at least some of the operations of a method may be performed by one or more processors 1410 or processor-implemented components. Moreover, the one or more processors 1410 may also operate to support performance of the relevant operations in a “cloud computing” environment or as a “software as a service” (SaaS). For example, at least some of the operations may be performed by a group of computers (as examples of machines 1400 including processors 1410), with these operations being accessible via a network 1480 (e.g., the Internet) and via one or more appropriate interfaces (e.g., an API). The performance of certain of the operations may be distributed among the processors 1410, not only residing within a single machine 1400, but deployed across a number of machines 1400. In some example embodiments, the processors 1410 or processor-implemented components may be located in a single geographic location (e.g., within a home environment, an office environment, or a server farm). In other example embodiments, the processors 1410 or processor-implemented components may be distributed across a number of geographic locations.

“PROCESSOR” in this context refers to any circuit or virtual circuit (a physical circuit emulated by logic executing on an actual processor 1412) that manipulates data values according to control signals (e.g., “commands,” “op codes,” “machine code,” etc.) and which produces corresponding output signals that are applied to operate a machine 1400. A processor may, for example, be a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP), an ASIC, a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), or any combination thereof. A processor 1410 may further be a multi-core processor 1410 having two or more independent processors 1412, 1414 (sometimes referred to as “cores”) that may execute instructions 1416 contemporaneously.

“TIMESTAMP” in this context refers to a sequence of characters or encoded information identifying when a certain event occurred, for example giving date and time of day, sometimes accurate to a small fraction of a second. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: identifying, using one or more processors, a multimodal message that includes an image and one or more words, and a string, the string including one or more non-text characters, the multimodal message comprising a social media post on a social network site; generating image vector data from the image using a convolutional neural network layer of an entity disambiguation neural network that generates a subject entity of the multimodal message, the entity disambiguation neural network comprising the convolutional neural network layer and a recurrent neural network layer that output to an attention neural network layer of the entity disambiguation neural network, the image vector data indicating an image embedding representation of the image; generating word vector data from the one or more words using the recurrent neural network layer, the word vector data indicating a word embedding representation of the one or more words; generating string vector data from the string using the recurrent neural network layer, the string vector data indicating a character embedding representation of the one or more non-text characters; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weightings values, the weightings values comprising a first weighted value indicating a numerical weighting for the image vector representation, a second weighted value indicating a numerical value for the word vector representation, and a third weighted value indicating a numerical value for the character embedding representation; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weighted image vector data from the image vector data and the first weighted value; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weighted word vector data from the word vector data and the second weighted value; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weighted string vector data from the string vector data and the third weighted value, the attention neural network layer trained to maximize a similarity score between a plurality of result vectors, the image vector data, the word vector data, and the string vector data; combining, using the attention neural network layer, weighted imaged vector data, the weighted word data, and the weighted character data and generate a combined weighted vector; generating, using a full connected neural network, a combined vector representation based on the combined weighted vector; selecting an entity based on the combined weighted vector; storing the entity as a subject of the social media post, the entity corresponding to a result vector from the plurality of result vectors, the entity selected by the entity disambiguation neural network based on the result vector being similar to a combination of the weighted image vector data, the word vector data, and the weighted string vector data; selecting one or more items of overlay content that correspond to the stored entity that is the subject of the multimodal message, the overlay content comprising a media overlay configured to be displayed on top of the image of the multimodal message; and generating a modified multimodal message by overlaying a display of the one or more items of overlay content on the multimodal message.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the convolutional neural network layer and the recurrent neural network layer are in parallel in the entity disambiguation neural network.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the attention neural network layer maximizes a dot product between the plurality of result vectors, the image vector data, the word vector data, and the string vector data.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of result vectors are generated at least in part using a knowledge base neural network from a set of text that describes a given entity of a plurality of entities that have similar names.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the set of text, for a given entity, is an article describing the given entity.
 6. The method of claim 4, wherein each of the plurality of result vectors are generated using a character-based neural network that compares characters from the one or more words to characters from names of potential entities.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the character-based neural network implements a Levenshtein scheme.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the recurrent neural network layer is configured to receive the one or more words as input data.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the entity disambiguation neural network further comprises an additional recurrent neural network that outputs data to the attention neural network layer, wherein the additional recurrent neural network is configured to receive the one or more non-text characters as input data, wherein the one or more non-text characters comprise: one or more punctuation marks, or one or more emojis.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the entity based on the combined weighted vector comprises: accessing a result data store table having a first column for each possible entity, a second column for knowledge-based embeddings, and a third column for lexical embeddings, the knowledge-based embeddings generated for each entity from a set of text that describes the entity, the lexical embeddings generated by a string net that compares the character vector representation against a spelling of each entity's name; and comparing the combined weighted vector to vector data from the result data store table.
 11. The method of claim 1, further comprising: publishing, on the social network site, the modified multimodal message as an ephemeral message.
 12. A system comprising: one or more processors of a machine; and a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the machine to perform operations comprising: identifying a multimodal message that includes an image and one or more words, and a string, the string including one or more non-text characters, the multimodal message comprising a social media post on a social network site; generating image vector data from the image using a convolutional neural network layer of an entity disambiguation neural network that generates a subject entity of the multimodal message, the entity disambiguation neural network comprising the convolutional neural network layer and a recurrent neural network layer that output to an attention neural network layer of the entity disambiguation neural network, the image vector data indicating an image embedding representation of the image; generating word vector data from the one or more words using the recurrent neural network layer, the word vector data indicating a word embedding representation of the one or more words; generating string vector data from the string using the recurrent neural network layer, the string vector data indicating a character embedding representation of the one or more non-text characters; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weightings values, the weightings values comprising a first weighted value indicating a numerical weighting for the image vector representation, a second weighted value indicating a numerical value for the word vector representation, and a third weighted value indicating a numerical value for the character embedding representation; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weighted image vector data from the image vector data and the first weighted value; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weighted word vector data from the word vector data and the second weighted value; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weighted string vector data from the string vector data and the third weighted value, the attention neural network layer trained to maximize a similarity score between a plurality of result vectors, the image vector data, the word vector data, and the string vector data; combining, using the attention neural network layer, weighted imaged vector data, the weighted word data, and the weighted character data and generate a combined weighted vector; generating, using a full connected neural network, a combined vector representation based on the combined weighted vector; selecting an entity based on the combined weighted vector; storing the entity as a subject of the social media post, the entity corresponding to a result vector from the plurality of result vectors, the entity selected by the entity disambiguation neural network based on the result vector being similar to a combination of the weighted image vector data, the word vector data, and the weighted string vector data; selecting one or more items of overlay content that correspond to the stored entity that is the subject of the multimodal message, the overlay content comprising a media overlay configured to be displayed on top of the image of the multimodal message; and generating a modified multimodal message by overlaying a display of the one or more items of overlay content on the multimodal message.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein the convolutional neural network layer and the recurrent neural network layer are in parallel in the entity disambiguation neural network.
 14. The system of claim 12, wherein the attention neural network layer maximizes a dot product between the plurality of result vectors, the image vector data, the word vector data, and the string vector data.
 15. The system of claim 12, wherein each of the plurality of result vectors are generated at least in part using a knowledge base neural network from a set of text that describes a given entity of a plurality of entities that have similar names.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein the set of text, for a given entity, is an article describing the given entity.
 17. The system of claim 15, wherein each of the plurality of result vectors are generated using a character-based neural network that compares characters from the one or more words to characters from names of potential entities.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein the character-based neural network implements a Levenshtein scheme.
 19. A machine-readable storage device embodying instructions that, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising: identifying a multimodal message that includes an image and one or more words, and a string, the string including one or more non-text characters, the multimodal message comprising a social media post on a social network site; generating image vector data from the image using a convolutional neural network layer of an entity disambiguation neural network that generates a subject entity of the multimodal message, the entity disambiguation neural network comprising the convolutional neural network layer and a recurrent neural network layer that output to an attention neural network layer of the entity disambiguation neural network, the image vector data indicating an image embedding representation of the image; generating word vector data from the one or more words using the recurrent neural network layer, the word vector data indicating a word embedding representation of the one or more words; generating string vector data from the string using the recurrent neural network layer, the string vector data indicating a character embedding representation of the one or more non-text characters; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weightings values, the weightings values comprising a first weighted value indicating a numerical weighting for the image vector representation, a second weighted value indicating a numerical value for the word vector representation, and a third weighted value indicating a numerical value for the character embedding representation; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weighted image vector data from the image vector data and the first weighted value; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weighted word vector data from the word vector data and the second weighted value; generating, using the attention neural network layer, weighted string vector data from the string vector data and the third weighted value, the attention neural network layer trained to maximize a similarity score between a plurality of result vectors, the image vector data, the word vector data, and the string vector data; combining, using the attention neural network layer, weighted imaged vector data, the weighted word data, and the weighted character data and generate a combined weighted vector; generating, using a full connected neural network, a combined vector representation based on the combined weighted vector; selecting an entity based on the combined weighted vector; storing the entity as a subject of the social media post, the entity corresponding to a result vector from the plurality of result vectors, the entity selected by the entity disambiguation neural network based on the result vector being similar to a combination of the weighted image vector data, the word vector data, and the weighted string vector data; selecting one or more items of overlay content that correspond to the stored entity that is the subject of the multimodal message, the overlay content comprising a media overlay configured to be displayed on top of the image of the multimodal message; and generating a modified multimodal message by overlaying a display of the one or more items of overlay content on the multimodal message.
 20. The machine-readable storage device of claim 19, wherein the convolutional neural network layer and the recurrent neural network layer are in parallel in the entity disambiguation neural network. 